ESCONDIDO IS WHEREVER YOU WANT IT TO BE FOR DESIGNER
NOT-COASTAL
ESCONDIDO THE MISCAST STAR OF CLOTHING LINE

The breaking fashion news is that Frank & Oak, a millennial-style online men’s clothing company, released on Tuesday a new limited edition of “summer-in-the-winter” gear called — unplugged guitar fanfare, please — “Escondido.”

The admittedly snarky sidebar, however, is that Frank & Oak, based in Montreal, appears to have had no clue what — or where — Escondido actually is.

Not since the great Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale released “The Road to Escondido” has the Hidden Valley received such an unexpected boost to its international brand.

As you’ll recall, the bluesy album’s cover depicted Cale, a longtime Valley Center resident, hitchhiking on a country road. He’s holding up a handmade cardboard sign with “Escondido” in block letters. Clapton is strumming a guitar on the bed of an old broken-down pickup.

The photograph, it turned out, was not shot in Escondido or its environs but at the Paramount Ranch north of Los Angeles, proving — as if we needed proof — that on most days, summer or winter, SoCal’s inland back roads look pretty much alike.

But no matter where it was snapped, the widely disseminated picture reflected the rural identity of the 125-year-old city, the historical capital of inland North County.

Yes, Escondido boasts a downtown arts center and galleries on Grand Avenue, but its global tourist draw is anchored by the nearby Safari Park. Come May, the much-anticipated first stage of the Amgen Tour of California will send swarms of pro cyclists up Palomar Mountain and all around the backcountry, a pastoral world of avocado groves far from the hip beach cities along Highway 101.

So you can imagine the confusion sown by an Esquire Q&A in which Frank & Oak founder Ethan Song discusses his new Escondido collection and its organic connection to the California town that inspired it.

“A big part of the ideas and feel behind this collection,” Song says, “goes back to my teenage years growing up in Montreal. My father used to work in the animation industry so I would travel to California in the summer to surf and skate in places like Santa Monica and Huntington Beach. Over the last few years, this desire to escape the normalcy of daily life and the cold of Canadian winters took me all over the U.S., Mexico and beyond to places like Escondido. So Escondido is a reflection of one’s need to venture out, to seek the ocean.”

Seek the ocean?

The interview went on to discuss the collection’s artfully beaten-up colors, ’90s skate vibe, French terry crewnecks (“lighter and washed to create a worn-out feel right from the start”) and what to pack for a cool weekend getaway. (For shoes, “a pair of worn kicks like Vans or old school Nikes.”)

In a video linked to the Esquire interview, Song does a voice-over as he skateboards through his Canadian headquarters.

“What is my dream summer?” Song asks himself. “Escondido is a trip where you plan on doing nothing.”

He imagines “waking up, putting on the clothes you feel good in and you’re not going to think about it. Out in the nature and the open. ...”